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Dear Editor:
Four of the hottest-selling products lately in Carmel are hand sanitizer, toilet paper, face masks and whitewash.
The first three relate to a virus; the fourth, to city hall cronyism.
Example One: Local TV presented police records showing 33 percent of traffic citations went to Black drivers in Carmel. Asked why the city council wasn’t investigating, council president Jeff Worrell said in an email that he didn’t want to embarrass police officers. Never mind the embarrassment and humiliation of every Black driver involved.
Example Two: The 46 percent cost overrun on the city’s hotel project. Council finance committee chair Sue Finkam led an inquiry that has yet to produce a final report. Public testimony focused on construction cost overruns. Redevelopment commission documents online show construction costs exceeded estimates by $1.6 million, or less than 9 percent of the $18.5 million over-run. Not a word about the other 91 percent.
Example Three: The mayor has contracted with an East Coast consultant to study roundabouts and the Tax Incentive Financing that has the city billions of dollars in debt. Contract specifications call for the vendor to collect financial information not available to the public, anecdotal information, cherry-picked project costs, testimonials from municipal sycophants and otherwise script a Mel Brooks scenario for public consumption. All this for $420,000.
As one non-mayor put it, “I didn’t know whitewash smelled so bad.”
Bill Shaffer
Carmel
Maybe the 33% of black drivers given citations were breaking the law. The remaining 67% of drivers of other races broke the law as well, that’s why citations were distributed. I am a white,female residing in Carmel. I hadn’t had a ticket or car accident since the ’90s. Carmel PD pulled me for no seatbelt. Left the scene with a citation. Carmel PD do their job and do it well. Kindly back off your race inquiry. Its false narrative and im proof of it.
Dear Linda,
Whether or not the black drivers who received citations were actually guilty of seat belt or speeding infractions isn’t the point of the inquiry.
The city needs to investigate it because we lack certain necessary information to determine whether or not we have either a “blacks are disproportionately bad drivers and all other races drive just peachy” problem or a “police are disproportionately pulling over black drivers” problem.
African Americans represent just 3% of Carmel’s population…so either they are truly awful drivers as compared to their counterpart drivers of all other races or our police seem to be singling them out for extra attention.
How does this compare to the rest of the country? According to the Stanford Open Policing Project, Blacks and Hispanics are certainly pulled over at higher rates pretty much everywhere which might lead you to the conclusion that they do, in fact, drive worse than other motorists.
However, according to the study’s analysis of over 100 million traffic stops, they are far more likely to be pulled over for minor infractions than than white motorists everywhere as well.
As in, traffic stops for whites tend do be for more significant life safety type violations while Black and Hispanic drivers are cited for minor violations or even just pulled over for dubious DUI stops where no citation is issued (as in the officer pulled them over, they take a sobriety test, and are determined to not be under the influence).
This is made even more damning when the time of the infraction is taken in consideration. The rate of black motorists being pulled over at night drops dramatically. Meaning that, if the officer couldn’t identify that the driver who was speeding was black, they would be less likely to pull them over.
Why is this happening? Another study in 2017 offers some clues. In states where marijuana has been legalized, the rate at which black motorists were pulled over, for any reason, dropped precipitously once again. Is an implicit racial bias about blacks causing police to fabricate reasons to pull them over in the off chance they could initiate a search of the vehicle? The data certainly seems to indicate that was the case in those states. Is it the case here?
Whether or not these national trends are valid here in Carmel is not yet known…which is why an inquiry should be made. I’m not accusing our police of having a racial bias. I’m saying that we should know the results of such an study in order to ensure to all of us that they don’t.
Why should this matter to you…a white lady who got a seat belt violation in Carmel? Because you are a citizen of this town, and one who seems a proponent of law and order at that.
The legitimacy of government to create laws is predicated upon its ability to enforce them on and for all of its citizens equally. If it cannot even manage that, the most public and frankly simple interface between those who govern and those who are governed, then how can any of us trust what goes on that we never get the chance to see?
Just because blacks represent 3% of Carmel’s population doesn’t mean we don’t have more during the work week.
Blacks are 13% of the overall population but commit 53% of overall crime. https://www.dailywire.com/news/7-statistics-you-need-know-about-black-black-crime-aaron-bandler
They need better family households and less single mothers.